The Utzy Blog

In recent years, a major consumer trend has been the public’s concern with the prevalent usage of harmful chemicals. These toxins can be found in nearly every type of consumer good.

Even in your mattresses.

While it's easy to overlook your mattress as being a potential source of chemical exposure, thankfully there are natural bed alternatives that you can choose from.

So how can you find the best natural made mattress?

What To Look For In A Natural Mattress

Finding the best mattress for you is a critical issue that you must invest time, money and research into - something that can be difficult (and boring) to do.

Size

First you need to consider the best size mattress. Do you need a queen? King? Or a smaller mattress? Pick the best size for you (and your partner).

A good way to find the best size is to "test drive" a mattress. Many online stores have 30 return policies. Try one out and see if you like it!

Price

Compared to traditional beds made from synthetic material, a natural made mattress is quite costly. The price factor is one of the primary reasons natural-made beds are not as popular. Although it will be an expensive purchase, the advantages is that your mattress will last much longer.

Most natural made mattresses will last you up to 15 or 20 years without compromising the quality of support and comfort that it offers. Buying a natural bed is an expensive one-off investment that will benefit you for a long time to come!

Materials

Natural made queen mattress are made from fabrics free of chemicals, dyes, pesticides and other treatments which can be harmful to your health and environment. This type of mattress is manufactured using hypoallergenic materials.

Such fabrics not only reduce the chance of you having an allergic reaction to the bed but will also prevent entry of mites and bedbugs.

Some of the chemicals used in traditional beds have been known to lead to allergic reactions and other skin irritations.

Comparing the two, natural made beds are safer to sleep on since they have a minimal chance of causing health problems.

Wishful thinking, right? A few months ago, Tom Brady raved about his new “athlete recovery” pajamas. They are touted to make you sleep better and wake up more restored. As a sleep scientist, I had to dig into brand new research to learn how Tom Brady’s PJs work.

Here’s what I found out:

Tom Brady's sleep pajamas are possible thanks to an advanced fabric inlaid with a new fabric/material technology called bio-ceramics.

Bio-ceramic clothing is created when various ceramics and mineral oxides are mixed together and super-heated. Once this mixture cools, the material that is produced is called a bio-ceramic and is suitable to be used in fabrics.

Traditionally, bio-ceramics have been used in the medical world as bone material (bio-ceramic materials are commonly used in hip replacement procedures).

The benefits of bio-ceramic clothing are reported to help increase blood flow and circulation. Since blood flow impacts sleep, this is why bio-ceramic fabric claims to increase sleep quality.

While it's true that increased blood flow can promote the urge to sleep, it's a balance. Too much blood flow can lead to an increase in one's core body temperature. This will keep you awake at night.

Too little blood flow can lead to discomfort and a cool body temperature.

The key is to find the middle ground.

Rather than simply increasing blood flow, the main factor for a good night’s sleep is in properly regulating your Core Body Temperature (or CBT).

We’ll dive into what your Core Body Temperature is and how it affects your sleep.

How Does Core Body Temperature Impact Sleep?

Over the past three decades, scientists have identified a very intimate relationship between sleep quality and Core Body Temperature (CBT). Simply put, when your CBT drops, your body prepares itself for deep, restorative sleep. When our CBT rises, the body prepares itself for being awake.

To further understand how core body temperature impacts sleep, you have to realize that your body’s core temperature fluctuates throughout the day. There are peaks and dips each day in your core body temperature (CBT) that impact your body’s overall energy levels.

When we wake in the morning, our Core Body Temperatures rises. Around lunchtime, our CBT peaks and then begins to fall. In the early afternoon, our CBT reaches a low point, which explains why we tend to be sleepy in the afternoon and in need of a nap (or some coffee, a much better alternative than energy drinks)

After the afternoon lull, your body’s core temperature starts to increase again until nightfall. During the night, your body’s Core Body Temperature starts to drop, which prepares you for your highest quality REM sleep.

Having quality, uninterrupted sleep throughout the night helps your body repair, recover, and prepare itself for the battles it faces the next day. During deep non-REM sleep, we release two very important, muscle building hormones: growth hormone and insulin growth factor.

Of course, growth hormone is the more recognizable hormone to athletes (like Tom Brady), but both of these hormones -growth hormone and insulin growth factor- help to build muscle and increase recovery.

Rather Than Tom Brady’s Expensive Pajamas, Consider Sleeping In A Colder Environment

As I mentioned above, having a high body temperature during the night can interfere with your body’s ability to get high quality sleep. While Tom Brady’s pajamas might help with increasing blood flow, the most important factor for better sleep is having a low core body temperature.

And sorry to say, but Tom Brady’s pajamas can’t guarantee that.

So rather than spending big money on a pair of pajamas, consider a simpler option for better sleep.

Sleep in a cold room between 60-73 degrees with minimal clothing/blankets. It may seem strange at first, but it releases all types of feel-good hormones in your body and improves your overall sleep quality.

Natural Ways to Improve Sleep

Sleeping in a cool environment can be a difference maker. Below are a few other natural sleep tips. Following these sleep tips can go a long way towards helping you get refreshing sleep!

• Maintain A Constant Sleep/Awake Schedule. The timing of quality sleep is internally controlled by your biological clock. As humans, we were designed to stay awake during the day, and to sleep at night. If we sleep during the day (and stay awake at night), it is very difficult for our bodies to adjust (and it is very difficult to get optimal sleep).

• Take Magnesium: Most people are magnesium deficient and need to supplement. In fact, research shows that almost half of the US population is magnesium deficient. Magnesium has many benefits. It helps to maintain and fine-tune functioning of the nervous system (remember, sleep is a function of the nervous system). Additionally, Magnesium helps to calm your body down and relax your muscles. This makes Magnesium the perfect supplement to take before bed to help you finish winding down.

• Try a Sleep Supplement: Sleep is crucial. If you struggle with occasional sleeplessness, you know that lack of sleep is no joke! For those trying times, natural sleep aids are a great idea. Make sure to get a specific nighttime formula that is designed to help you achieve your goal, whether that falling asleep or staying asleep.

***

The take-away from this post is that lowering your core body temperature is optimal for your sleep. Whether or not Tom Brady's PJs switch from warming to cooling in the middle of the night has yet to be determined.

Rather than spending money on fancy pajamas, try sleeping in a cooler environment first, and see how that improves your sleep quality.

Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist specializing in the physiology and genetics of sleep and performance. She is author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain, which debunks the myth of the "dumb jock" and serves as a manual for optimizing athletic performance through neuroscience. Outside of the laboratory, she is a former college athlete and Crossfit Games team athlete.

We are all familiar with the fact that there are different stages of sleep and that each stage is important for our bodies - but did you know that certain types of sleep help us to recover better?

This type of sleep is called "non-REM sleep" (also called "nREM").

While non-REM sleep may not be as popular as REM sleep, it is just as important.

The benefits of non-REM sleep include the release of testosterone and growth hormone, two key hormones involved in restoring your body. Along with these benefits, non-REM sleep assists your body in many other ways.

What is non-REM sleep?

As a sleep researcher, I know too much about non-REM sleep to give a simplified definition. Thankfully, the Oxford English Dictionary has an accurate and simple definition of nREM that I will expand on in this article:

“Non-REM sleep is the dominant kind of sleep, when brain activity is much reduced and there is no dreaming."

While this definition is easy to understand, you may be asking, how does a lack of brain activity equate to better recovery and performance? How does nothing give you something of value?

Isaac Newton once said, "for every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Sleep is no exception to the laws of nature.

For every minute that our brains are awake and our bodies are moving, our brains should be "inactive" and our bodies should be immobile. This is exactly what the sleep cycle and stages of sleep are for. This is how our bodies are restored.

Specifically, during non-REM sleep, the nerve cells in our brain take turns going "offline" - stopping communication with other nerve cells. At the same time, the cells in our body rebuild themselves, replenishing sugar, fats, and salts for the next day of use.

This is the purpose of non-REM sleep. Building your body up after a long day of tearing it down.

This restorative sleep (nREM) is critical for our bodies. Hence, this is why 85% of our time asleep at night is spent in non-REM sleep.

Keep in mind, that for athletes looking to increase recovery, stage 3 of nREM sleep is the most important. This is when growth hormone (HGH) and testosterone are released. We'll detail that below.

Two Key Benefits of non-REM Sleep:

1. Growth Hormone Release:

Here’s a surprising fact. Our bodies release muscle building hormones, such as human growth hormone and testosterone, when we sleep. Specifically, the release of growth hormone is triggered by nREM sleep.

Every time I tell an athlete that non-REM sleep activates the release of growth hormone, I get questions. Everyone seems to be interested in recovering better!

Contrary to popular belief, your body does not release growth hormone and testosterone directly after a high-intensity workout or sweat session. Your body releases growth hormone at night when you are in non-REM sleep, especially stage 3 non-REM sleep (see chart above).

What happens if you only sleep for four hours and not the recommended eight hours? Your body will only release half the amount of muscle-building hormones, as shown in a famous study in The Lancet.

Ladies, we also release testosterone to help build lean muscle: there is a single cell factor (termed 'enzyme') that converts estrogen into testosterone and testosterone into estrogen.

Also, the more active you are, the more testosterone you release. So there you have it, your blueprint for building lean muscle and losing body fat is to get a full night’s sleep (8.4 hours is ideal)!

If you struggle with sleeping at night, check out Utzy's natural sleep aids. You can get 50% off your first bottle!

I have some tips below on how to increase your nREM sleep, read on.

2. Physical Restoration:

Non-REM sleep is important for all types of physical restoration, not just for building muscle. non-REM sleep also triggers the release of many different cell factors in our body to be ready for the next day; the kidneys will replenish salt stores, the brain and muscles replenish sugar and fat stores, and so on.

Even if you don't have a stressful everyday lifestyle, being awake is stressful on the body in and of itself.We build up waste products in our brains and bodies at the expense of being awake, and we use sleep to literally flush out these waste products, especially from the brain.

This is exactly what happens during 85% of our time asleep. Get rejuvenated and recover better with the recommended 8.4 hours of sleep at night.

Stages of non-REM Sleep:

There are three stages of non-REM sleep that we cycle through across the night. We enter sleep in non-REM sleep and spend most of the night in non-REM sleep.

We finish sleep with REM sleep (typically) but will still cycle in and out of non-REM sleep and REM sleep during the wee hours of the morning.

See the chart below to help visualize your sleep cycle.

Stage 1 (nREM).

This is the lightest stage of non-REM sleep. We enter sleep in stage 1. If we happen to doze off in class or in the afternoon, we enter our daze in stage 1 non-REM sleep. Buddhist monks are often said to have brain activity reminiscent of stage 1 non-REM sleep at many points of the day.

A brain state reminiscent of stage 1 non-REM sleep can be achieved over time with routine practices of mindfulness. There is some but not much physical restoration during stage 1 non-REM sleep. Stage 1 non-REM sleep is more of a gateway to deeper, restorative stages of sleep.

Stage 2 (nREM).

During stage 2 non-REM sleep, we start to lose awareness of our surrounding environment. Stage 2 non-REM sleep is famous for the appearance of "K-complexes" on brain activity read-outs. K-Complexes were discovered in the lab from when a research assistant 'K-nocked' on the door of a sleep participant.

Again, there is not a significant amount of physical restoration during stage 2 non-REM sleep but yes, nerve cells in the brain do take turns going "offline" during this time. The physical restoration process begins in the body.

Stage 3 (nREM).

This is the deepest stage of sleep. This is the stage of non-REM sleep with the most physical restoration. The brain is mostly shut off from the surrounding environment.

Our bodies release muscle-building hormones, clear waste products, resupply energy stores, and make our bodies ready to go for the next day. This is the stage of sleep that we should make a priority.

REM Sleep (Stage 4).

What nREM is to physical health, REM is to mental health. REM sleep (rapid eye movement) is the most important stage of sleep for your brain. This is the stage of sleep when your brain becomes highly active. This is the stage of sleep were your will start to dream. You can read my in-depth article on REM sleep here.

REM Sleep vs. Non-REM Sleep:

The second type of sleep is Rapid Eye-Movement (REM) sleep. In pop culture, REM sleep is talked about much more than NREM sleep. This due to the fact that REM sleep is the only time of the night when we dream (which is fascinating in and of itself!).

While non-REM sleep is critical for physical restoration, REM sleep is critical for mental restoration. REM sleep is necessary for us to remember facts and skills that we just learned and for repeating this information the next day.

Non-REM sleep is for physical health, and REM sleep is for brain health. It’s that simple. We cycle in and out of non-REM and REM sleep across the night, restoring and preserving our physical and mental health in the process!

How To Increase non-REM sleep:

Getting enough non-REM sleep is important for optimal health and wellness. Below are are couple of tips for increasing non-REM sleep. In addition to these tips, I also reccoment tracking your sleep. You can use this free sleep diary that I created to be used at home.

•Eat Greens

Science is constantly proving that “we are what we eat.” Prioritizing greens, healthy grains, fats, and proteins throughout the day stabilizes the body’s blood sugar levels.

Eating a low sugar, high protein snack before bed prevents blood sugar levels from spiking during the night, waking us up, and wasting time that could have been spent in non-REM sleep.

•Avoid Light at Night

Light emitted from cell phones, tablets, and HDTVs actively suppresses the release of melatonin: “the hormone of darkness”. Melatonin is released to help us fall asleep and stay asleep, maximizing our time in non-REM sleep. Melatonin release is extremely sensitive to LED light.

Put away your technology at night and read a book as you get ready to sleep at night. Your relaxed, calm brain will thank me.

•Take Magnesium

Most people are magnesium-deficient and need to supplement. In fact, research shows that half of the US population is deficient. Magnesium, particularly Magnesium Carbonate, slightly elevates levels of carbon dioxide in our blood. This reaction tricks our brain into thinking it should be asleep.

Magnesium may also reduce the chance that you’ll experience restless legs syndrome (i.e. leg twitching at night due to fatigue) and wake up because of it.

If you aren’t getting enough Magnesium, you can supplement with a high quality product like Utzy’s U-Mag. It’s inexpensive to take and insures that you get enough Magnesium every day. Did I mentioned it is flavored with Organic lemon and takes delicious? Check it out here.

To wrap this article up my simple advice is this: do whatever you can to achieve the golden 8.4 hours of sleep per night. That's over six hours of physical restoration from non-REM sleep! Your body will thank you.

Whether it's through taking a natural sleep aid (save 50% off your first bottle!) or through creating a better sleep environment, make sure to get those extra hours of sleep!

Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist specializing in the physiology and genetics of sleep and performance. She is author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain, which debunks the myth of the "dumb jock" and serves as a manual for optimizing athletic performance through neuroscience. Outside of the laboratory, she is a former college athlete, Crossfit Games team athlete, and is still active in track and field: pole vault and hurdles.

If superstar athletes place such a high priority on sleep because of the performance boost it gives, shouldn't we as well?

Here's how you can optimize your sleep as you head into the New Year.

There are Two Key Components for Optimizing Sleep:

1. Total Amount of Sleep: Like many things in life, how much sleep one needs falls along a bell-curve. Most humans need an average of 8.4 hours of sleep per night in order to perform at their (relative) best.

This has been empirically studied and validated across decades of research. Make it a priority to get 8.4 hours.

2. Optimize Your Sleep with Sleep Timing. Timing really is everything. Our bodies and brains have sets of self-sufficient, self-operating, and self-sustaining biological clocks. In the lab, I study the clocks of both mice and men. What we consistently find is that nearly every type of behavior that is considered “routine” becomes hard-wired.

These biological clocks adjust physiological demands (e.g., hormone release, hunger, alertness, and sleepiness) around the time of these routines. After such adjustment, optimization occurs. Be a master of routine in 2018!

As humans, we benefit greatly from routine. Throughout the night, the timing of sleep dictates how much the body transitions through two very important and functional types of sleep. The first type of sleep is known as Non-Rapid Eye-Movement (NREM) sleep.

It promotes recovery and repair in your body. This is the time when your body physically rebuilds itself. You can read more about Non-REM Sleep here

The second type of sleep is Rapid Eye-Movement (REM) sleep. In pop culture, REM sleep is talked about much more than NREM sleep, and rightfully so! When REM sleep occurs, it is the time that your brain is cognitively restored.

We selectively process, encode, and store information, skills, and life events during REM sleep. In fact, researchers have found that people who are actively deprived of REM sleep often have poorer performances on motor skills and mental exercises.

These performance decrements can be restored with a power nap in the afternoon - a time when REM sleep is physiologically favored.

Tips for Optimizing Sleep:

• Focus on Nutrition.

Science is constantly proving that “we are what we eat.” You may have come across the buzzword “microbiome” - the idea that our guts’ bacteria have a directly profound effect on physiology and behavior. Ratios of good versus bad gut bacteria are dependent upon the food we eat.

Prioritizing greens, healthy grains, fats, and proteins throughout the day stabilizes the body’s blood sugar levels. Eating a low sugar, high protein snack before bed prevents blood sugar levels from spiking during the night partly due to its slow digestion.

• Minimize Light at Night.

Light emitted from cell phones, tablets, and HDTVs actively suppresses the release of melatonin: “the hormone of darkness”. Melatonin is released to help us fall asleep and stay asleep.

However, melatonin release is extremely sensitive to light, particularly LED light. Put away your technology at night and read a classic!

• Keep a Sleep Diary

There are plenty out there. Check out Apple’s ‘Health’ app. While most (if not all) do not accurately detect deep stages of NREM sleep or REM sleep at night, these devices promote goal-oriented behavior at the very least. Pen and paper work just as well.

Three Nutrients to Prioritize For Better Sleep in 2018:

• Magnesium

Most people are magnesium-deficient and need to supplement. In fact, research shows that half of the US population is deficient. Magnesium helps to maintain a healthy neuromuscular system, allowing you to become fitter, faster, stronger, and sleep better. Foods rich in magnesium include dark leafy greens (e.g., kale and spinach), almonds, cashews, black molasses, nuts, and seeds---especially those of the pumpkin and squash variety.

• Vitamin E and Iron

Restless legs syndrome and general nervous system fatigue are common with intensive training. Vitamin E and iron help to maintain a healthy vascular system, helping with oxygen transport. Foods rich in Vitamin E and iron include sunflower seeds/oil, red meat, and eggs.

• Vitamin B

Vitamin B is well-known to promote energy and alertness, but do you know that it can also promote sleep? Vitamin B aids in the conversion of the amino acid tryptophan into serotonin: a neurochemical driver of sleep. One lesser-known but potent source of Vitamin B and other valuable nutrients is blue-green algae.

Do whatever you can to achieve the golden 8.4 hours of sleep per night. It’ll be the single greatest thing you can do to positively impact your health in 2018.

Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist specializing in the physiology and genetics of sleep and performance. She is author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain which debunks the myth of the "dumb jock" and serves as a manual for optimizing athletic performance through neuroscience. Outside of the laboratory, she is a former D1 varsity athlete, Crossfit Games team athlete and still competes in track and field: pole vault and hurdles.

The race to accomplish more out of life has made sleep a guilty pleasure for many. This is wrong thinking, a good night’s sleep is as important as eating well and exercising, and essential for you to feel rested and active the next day.

Even small alterations in sleeping patterns can have significant effect on a person’s mood. Constituently failing to get enough sleep can do damage to your health.

Five classic signs of sleep deprivation are:

•weight gain

•crankiness

•forgetfulness

•constant exhaustion

•and frequently catching a cold.

In this article, we will primarily be going over the correlation between sleep loss and weight gain, as well as learn some healthy sleeping habits.

The 5 Ways That Sleep Loss Can Lead To Weight Gain:

In real life, as you battle with an overflowing agenda, skimping on sleep on weekdays has become a norm. And if you think sacrificing 30 minutes per day on weekdays would not make much of a difference to your health, you are in for a surprise.

In the long run, accumulating asleep debt by skimping on shuteye is going to increase your risk for a host of health problems. This is because sleep deprivation disrupts the delicate balance of your metabolism. Due to this, sleep loss leads to weight gain. Here’s how:

1. When You Are Tired You Are Less Inclined To Exercise

If you have compromised on sleep the night before, you are going to feel low on energy. Most likely, you are going to press the snooze button and try to get 5 more minutes of broken sleep, rather than hitting the gym.

2. You Tend To Eat Unhealthy

Sleep deprivation increases the level of the stress hormone cortisol. That urges you to reach out for unhealthy food items as your body struggles to produce serotonin to calm you down. And eating foods rich in fat and carbs (like chips and desserts) is the easiest way to produce it.

Also, as you stay up at night, you tend to eat more. More hours awake equals more time to eat. This leads to late night snacking... (read on below).

3. Sleeplessness Leads To More Snacking

Lack of sleep makes your hormones go a little bit haywire, especially your ghrelin (hunger-signaling) and leptin (satiety hormone) levels. With more of the ghrelin hormone circulating in your bloodstream, you snack more - typically on fat- and carb-laden foods. In fact, according to a research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was found that sleep-deprived participants ate an average of 300 calories more per day.

4. Your Can Go Metabolism Down

Sleeplessness messes with the delicate metabolic system, a process by which your body converts food into energy. The thyroid gland located at the base of your neck decides basal metabolic rate (BMR), which determines the number of calories you will spend while maintaining bodily activities like breathing, digesting foods and eliminating waste.

If you have an active BMR you will be able to manage your weight without much fuss. However, sleepless nights can wreck havoc on your metabolism and can slow it down.

5. Your Blood Sugar Levels Can Goes Up

Sleeplessness stresses your body and your body responds to that by having higher than normal blood glucose levels. And when you have more sugar idling in your body, it tends to get stored as fat.

How Can You Get Your Sleep Back On Track?

The first step is to acknowledge the role of sleep in good health. Once you will do it, you will not wear sleeplessness as a badge of honour.

However, if you are one of those people who finds it difficult to sleep, you need to inculcate good sleep hygiene. Develop a routine to give your mind a cue that it’s time to unwind.

And stick to that routine,even on weekends.

Ask a doctor and he will advise you to use the bed only for sleep and sex. Out goes your late night Netflix bingeing, or working on your laptop in the bed.

A warm glass of milk at bedtime is the most trusted food to get sleep. Additional food items, like almonds, potatoes, and whole wheat bread contain amino acid tryptophan, which helps you get your forty winks.

Avoid mentally stimulating activities at bedtime and light a lavender candle at your bedside. The soothing fragrance will help you relax.

A warm bath before bedtime will also help you unwind and induce sleep.

On average, you need about 7.5 hours of sleep daily. If you are sleeping for five hours and you start to get two hours of extra sleep in the night, you will find it much easier to maintain a healthy weight.

Sleep your way to healthy weight loss and get a glowing skin and improved immunity as add-ons!

Every year, the top sleep scientists in the world, including myself, gather to discuss recent discoveries in the world of sleep, with REM sleep being one of the most popular topics.

Despite many unknowns and unknowables in the field of sleep, as scientists, we can agree that there is one type of sleep that helps us to maximize creativity, learning, and information retention.

What type of sleep is this?

REM sleep.

In fact, I even had the opportunity to sit down and hear about the trials and tribulations of discovering REM sleep from the original discoverer of REM sleep himself: Dr. William C. Dement (Stanford University).

What is REM sleep?

REM sleep stands for "rapid eye movement sleep". This is what Dr. William Dement (and his fellow researchers) decided to call REM sleep when they discovered it in 1953 at the University of Chicagowhen they noticed that their research participants had vigorously flickering eyelids at random intervals throughout the night.

After careful study, this team discovered that REM sleep is characterized by a highly active brain, aggressive eye movements (that will often drive dream content), and a nearly paralyzed body.

These characteristics of REM sleep are why REM sleep is called 'paradoxical sleep'. It's like putting your brain on the gas and your body on the brake at the same time.

During REM sleep, nearly every skeletal muscle of your body is paralyzed. The only muscles that aren't frozen are the ones important for basic survival, this includes your:

•Ocular eye muscles (to initiate rapid eye movements)

•Auditory muscles (for hearing)

•The diaphragm (for breathing).

Otherwise, all of your body’s other musculature are limp, thanks to signals traveling from the brain and along the spinal cord. Clearly, this state is reversible. After every REM episode, the brain briefly enters a state of wake (whether you are consciously aware of it or not), which in return, re-activates your muscles.

The REM Sleep Cycle

How long is a REM sleep cycle? Each cycle of human sleep is 90 minutes. During that 90 minute cycle, we transition from non-REM sleep (typically deep non-REM sleep) to REM sleep to a brief state of being awake (typically subconsciously). As the night progresses, our non-REM sleep episodes within our 90 minute cycle get shorter, and our REM sleep episodes get longer.

Simply put, the longer you sleep, the more deep REM sleep you will get.

REM sleep is only 10-15% of our total nightly sleep. This means that we only spend 15-20 minutes in REM sleep per cycle! This is why you want to get as many hours of sleep as you can so that you get more REM cycles.

REM Sleep and Dreaming

REM sleep is also the only state of sleep where you dream. Some dreams seem to last the entire night. This is especially true if you are sleep-deprived. As sleep scientists, we still know very little about how dreams occur (and the meaning behind them). We have had recent breakthroughs in decoding dream content, but most importantly, it has been our discoveries about the function of REM sleep that has been most impactful on human health and performance.

How our brains piece together narratives in what appears to be cinematographic films (i.e. dreams) is still a mystery but we are one step closer to decoding dream content. A few years ago, a group of Japanese researchers recorded brain activity of sleepers who volunteered to sleep and have their brains scanned by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

After matching verbal reports of dream content with key words, the researchers later interviewed the volunteers while they were lying in an fMRI. Recall of key words from dream reports would activate some areas of the brain, particularly those involved with how we process visual information, and not others (see Horikawa et al. 2013,Sciencefor more information).

Two Key Benefits of REM Sleep

1. REM Sleep Helps You Learn Faster:

Why is it that you can remember how to ride a bike and never forget, but can't remember what you ate for dinner the day before?

The answer is...

REM sleep.

REM sleep keeps the necessary information and filters out the unnecessary information so that your brain doesn’t have to waste time trying to process everything.

The 'seahorse' structure of the brain, appropriately named the hippocampus (hippocampi being Greek for sea horse), helps us remember information, retain information, and recall information. The more we access this information and repeat this information, the more the hippocampus will retain this information.

Thus, there is biological evidence behind the old adage that "practice makes perfect". But practice will not be perfect, if you deprive yourself of REM sleep. Sleep researchers know this by means of having volunteers remember information before they sleep and waking them up throughout the night just as they enter REM sleep. After years of study, there is a strong relationship between the inability to remember information and a lack of REM sleep.

REM sleep is helpful not just for remembering encyclopedic knowledge, but also for prioritizing the integration and retention of muscle knowledge. Learning to ride a bike as a child is a skill. Learning to Olympic snatch as an adult is a skill. In fact, there is a direct correlation between learning new skill in real-time and the amount of REM sleep in real-time.

In general, when we learn a new skill, we tend to require more REM sleep at night, which assists and enhances the learning of new skills. To no surprise, being deprived of REM sleep, deprives your mind from integrating and retaining new skills.

This is why REM sleep is so important for those who have intensive jobs where you take in a lot of information (whether physical or mental).

More REM Sleep = Increased Retention = Better Performance.

2. REM Sleep Helps You To Become More Emotionally Balanced:

"How to Win Friends and Influence People," by the late Dale Carnegie is one of the best selling books in the world. It was written in the early 20th century, but still has real-life relevance in today's age of technology.

What does this book have to do with REM sleep? Carnegie's book talks about how to be emotionally balanced. This is the ultimate key to success in life according to Dale Carnegie. REM sleep acts out our frustrations, feelings, and fights for us: while we dream. It is not a coincidence that a traumatic and emotionally troubling time in one's life coincides with more REM sleep (as studied in the lab).

Why would this be? The act of sleeping, in and of itself, is meant to protect us from danger and help us conserve energy. REM sleep acts to preserve us from mental danger, which we know from the study of psychiatric conditions. REM sleep can help individuals suffering from PTSD cope with stress through dreaming, and a lack of REM sleep can be correlated with poorly coping with stress in real life.

Why is this so?

REM sleep helps to fine-tune the emotional centers of the brain, making sure nerve cells are communicating properly and, hopefully, with increased frequency. There is a direct line of feedback between emotional controller of the brain and REM controller of the brain. In fact, in healthy folks, taking a nap can further refine and sharpen the link between the emotional and REM controllers of the brain.

This knowledge bomb was discovered through studies in which volunteers were asked to study emotionally-charging faces before a nap. Those that were lucky enough to nap (based on their group assignment) felt the negative faces were less threatening after a nap. As expected, everything went south if the volunteers were sleep-deprived. The bottom line is you can become more emotionally balanced with a nap (during an optimal time [see below])!

REM sleep vs. non-REM sleep:

On paper, REM sleep is rapid-eye movement sleep and non-REM sleep is well, non-rapid-eye movement sleep. As we now know, REM sleep is more for mental restoration while non-REM sleep is more for physical restoration. We cycle in and out of non-REM and REM sleep throughout the night, restoring and preserving our physical and mental health in the process!

If you’d like to learn more about non-REM sleep and it’s physically restorative benefits, you can read my more in-depth article here.

How To Get More REM sleep:

Getting more REM sleep isn't difficult. Here, I offer two strategies for getting more REM sleep at night:

• Stay Cool At Night. As our body’s temperature drops, the body’s desire to be in REM sleep rises. Sleep in a cool room. Or, better yet, sleep naked. Clothing provides insulation, and insulation makes us sweat. You can't get quality sleep if you are sweating. You can read more sleep tips here.

• Stay Away From Light When You Sleep. When REM sleep occurs, it is internally controlled by your biological clock. We are day-active creatures and need to sleep at night. If we sleep during the day, our clocks can’t - and quite frankly will never - really be re-programmed to optimize REM sleep.

Thriving in low light at night essentially helps to strengthen the biological clock's schedule of wanting to sleep throughout the night with zero (brain-induced) interruptions and being active during the day.

• Take Magnesium: Most people are magnesium-deficient and need to supplement. In fact, research shows that half of the US population is deficient (source). Magnesium helps to maintain and fine-tune the functioning of the nervous system. This helps to positively impact REM sleep since coordinating an active brain in a paralyzed body during REM sleep are directly controlled by the nervous system.

The second means of maximizing REM sleep involves an understanding of when to sleep during the day and during the night in order to maximize time in REM sleep.

• Go To Bed Before 11:00pm: As I just mentioned, our body’s temperature rises and falls throughout the day and throughout the night and the lower our body temperatures, the more our bodies want to spend in REM sleep. We hit a nighttime low in body temperature between 3:00 - 5:00am that for the most is unchangeable, even in shift workers. It took thousands of years od living by sunrise and sunset for us to develop a daily rhythm of core body temperature, and our body’s rhythm has yet to change with just a hundred years of modern electricity.

This being said, going to bed before midnight can help us capitalize on non-REM sleep throughout the first half of the night, and capitalize on REM sleep during the second half.

• Nap Around 3:00PM: Our body temperature may be the lowest between 3:00 - 5:00am during the early morning, but it also reaches a daytime low between 3:00 - 4:00pm. During this time, our body not only wants to sleep, but if we do happen to take a power nap, most of the nap will be saturated with REM sleep due to the lowering in body temperature. Take advantage of this REM sleep boost!

To conclude, the science behind REM sleep is ever-progressing. REM sleep is more than just pieced together, outrageously weird narratives, and what appear to be cinematographic films every night (i.e. dreams).

REM sleep helps us remember and retain vital information. It refreshes your brain. It also helps to keep us from lashing out at co-workers, family, and strangers and helps to keep life as blissful as possible.

REM sleep is the overlooked but most powerful edge for mental restoration.

Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist specializing in the physiology and genetics of sleep and performance. She is author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain, which debunks the myth of the "dumb jock" and serves as a manual for optimizing athletic performance through neuroscience. Outside of the laboratory, she is a former college athlete, Crossfit Games team athlete, and is still active in track and field: pole vault and hurdles.

Before Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, humans slept differently. Without artificial lights to keep us up at night, humans naturally matched their sleep schedule with the sun.

Sleep when it’s dark. Wake up when it’s light out.

Edison changed that.

With artificial light and electricity, we now have a million and one temptations that threaten our sleep quality each and every night.

This leads to decreased sleep quantity and quality. In fact, researchers figure that artificial lights strip each of us between 1 and 2 hours PER night of sleep (source). This decrease in sleep during the night has lead to an increase of sleep during the day, namely, in the form of daytime naps.

The spontaneous need for a nap is typically attributed to poor or inadequate nighttime sleep. While habitual nappers and athletes are the exception, most of us nap as a means to pay back a "sleep debt" accumulated from sleeping poorly or not enough.

So is napping healthy?

Below, we’ll discuss the pro’s and con’s of napping.

The Benefits of Napping

As mentioned above, one of the major benefits of napping is repaying your sleep debt. The importance of sleep and our ability to function is similar to balancing a checkbook. For every hour you don't sleep (debit), you will have to pay back that hour in the future (credit) if you want to think, speak, and behave 'normally'.

Even if you think that you can short-change sleep, which you can in the short-term, it never works out in the long-term. Your body and brain will need to recover. Your body craves deep, REM sleep. While naps in the face of sleep deprivation can prevent an awful crash, it is best to get optimal sleep at night.

Another benefit of the nap comes from science conducted at Harvard University. Napping improves our ability to learn new information, retain, and later recall this information. It can stabilize our mood, which can help to keep us from over-reacting. It can also help us learn, retain, and refine new motor skills.

The Cons of Napping

Some people are simply incapable of napping. I am one of those people. The brains of some (decaffeinated) people can't wind down and some people's physiologies are just too disrupted by a 20-minute power nap.

For those individuals, taking a nap is going to do more harm than good. It’s going to disrupt your day and mess with your energy levels.

Much of this variation is genetic, the best way to find out is to test yourself. Did you feel refreshed when you wake up from a nap? Or do you feel like you just got hit by a freight train? Let that be your indicator of whether you should nap during the day. If naps aren’t your thing, do your best to get your sleep at night.

Another downside of napping is that napping for too long can be harmful to your body. In fact, research shows that over-napping (40+ minutes a day) can can suppress your metabolism (source).

Overall, naps are a good thing. The science shows that as long as your biological system can handle them and you keep them shorter, they will benefit your body.

So what is the best nap length? Read on below.

How Long Should I Nap?

Taking a 20 minute nap is the ideal length. Taking a nap longer than that can lead to a slower metabolism (as mentioned above) as well as increased sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is that post-sleep grogginess that can be difficult to shake off.

Even if you don’t get 20 minutes, simply napping for a few minutes will benefit your body. The best way to start sleeping quickly is to find a cool, dark spot to sleep. Try and find something comfortable to sleep on.

While you may think of napping as simply settling in and falling asleep, there are actually different types of naps. Below is information on how to take a “caffeine nap”, a new kind of nap with promising research that backs it!

Brewing the Perfect Nap

The perfect nap actually involves a brew (of coffee). For years, “caffeine naps” have been the golden ticket of the trucking industry. Taking a caffeine nap is simple.

Drink a mug of coffee, then, fall asleep. Sound crazy? Well it works!

How?

Caffeine twenty minutes to kick in before it hits your brain. So drink a coffee then cozy in for a quick power nap. After your 20 minute nap, you wake up, the coffee kicks in, and you are ready to go!

Nap Timing

If drinking coffee right before a nap isn’t your thing, I have some other guidelines you can follow.

Timing is everything when taking a nap. Even if you don't take a caffeine nap, the human body naturally desires to wind down in the afternoon. Do you ever replace the sudden urge to sleep in the afternoon with a shot of espresso? Well, then this is when you should nap. Trade that coffee for a nap (or drink it quickly, then nap!)

The time at which you have an urge to sleep varies from person to person. Typically it’s around 3:00 or 4:00pm when our core body temperature slightly drops. A drop in core body temperature in the afternoon is the body's attempt to conserve energy (i.e., sleep).

If you choose to nap during the afternoons, you don't want to go past 30 minutes. A longer nap will shock (shift) your internal biological clock - which is highly sensitive. In fact, the studies on napping show no added benefit of going longer than 20 - 30 min. So keep your naps short and sweet.

As I've mentioned several times throughout this article, napping is usually in response to not sleeping enough at night or getting poor sleep quality. If you want to skip the need for a nap during the day then you need to prioritize your sleep at night.

Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist specializing in the physiology and genetics of sleep and performance. She is author ofMeathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain,which debunks the myth of the "dumb jock" and serves as a manual for optimizing athletic performance through neuroscience. Outside of the laboratory, she is a former college athlete, Crossfit Games team athlete, and is still active in track and field: pole vault and hurdles.

Sleeping is an important activity that helps maintain the wellness of our bodies and minds. In order for us to function at our best, studies tell us to get 8 hours of sleep every night.

Have you given a thought if you are getting the right amount of shut-eye? The demands of this fast-paced world have us always on the move. We work nonstop during the day, but even as we go home deadbeat tired, ready to rest, we find ourselves wide awake and distracted.

We try our best to relax, find the best sleeping position and close our eyes but to no avail, we find ourselves tossing and turning and growing more frustrated by the second.

The easiest and fastest way to get ourselves to dreamland is to take a natural sleep supplement. But there are other ways for us to get that much-needed rest?

The infographic that I am about to show you contains unexpected natural ways that will stop sleeping from becoming a chore. Some of these options are inexpensive - and some you may just find lying around your home!

People in seventy different countries will be “falling back” once again this weekend, setting their clocks behind an hour.

I know what you’re thinking: Saturday night you get to sleep in a bit longer than you otherwise might have. However, a number of recent studies have shown that we do not gain from this, but that the negative effects can linger for a week or longer!

Keeping the Rhythm

Human beings, like all other mammals, have a sleep cycle that is intimately tied to the 24-hour day. Our bodies gravitate toward sleep when the sun goes down and wake during the sunrise. This cycle is known as the circadian rhythm.

While we obviously don’t adhere to only being awake during the daytime and only sleeping at night time, our unconscious brain is attuned to this daily cycle.

What is Daylight Savings Time Doing to Us?

Daylight Savings Time (DST) introduces an artificial interruption into our daily circadian rhythm. The effect that this has on our bodies has only recently been understood.

This time-shift change is similar to jet lag, and can lead to grogginess, problems maintaining attention and alertness, and even some more serious effects. This can disrupt your ability to get deep, REM sleep as well.

How Can You Combat Daylight Savings?

Other than writing a strongly worded letter to your congressperson, there’s nothing you can do to change DST. There are ways to mitigate its effects on your sleep for the following week.

First, it’s important to understand what melatonin is, and what its relationship is with the circadian sleep-wake cycle.

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the Pineal gland deep inside our brains. In normal circumstances, melatonin is secreted into our bloodstreams as the night approaches - usually around two hours before your bedtime - and peaks around 3-4 a.m. in a standard sleep cycle.

The function of melatonin appears to be diverse, acting as the “darkness” hormone, and in a sense ‘triggering’ or ‘synchronizing’ the necessary functions in the brain that tell the body to sleep.

The disruption caused by the DST on our normal circadian rhythm, especially during our ‘fall-back’ transition, means we have trouble falling asleep, and once asleep, often can’t stay asleep, or sleep soundly.

Resting easy can be hard work! Occasional sleeplessness can affect all of us. Some nights it’s hard to fall asleep. Other nights it’s tough to stay asleep.

Is there an easy way to sleep better?

Yes there is!

There are many natural foods that you can eat that will help you to sleep better!

So what are the best foods for helping you sleep better? Check out our list below!

1. Cherries

Tart cherries are a fantastic bedtime snack because they help your body produce more melatonin, the hormone that controls your circadian rhythm (source). More melatonin in your system helps you fall asleep faster.

You can eat cherries plain, or have a cup of unsweetened cherry juice before you head to bed.

2. Walnuts

Walnuts are high in tryptophan, an amino acid that helps you to fall asleep (source). Keep in mind though, that tryptophan works even better to help you fall asleep when it is combined with carbohydrates.

Besides tryptophan, walnuts are also packed with omega-3s and antioxidants, which makes them overall a healthy food.

Try eating a handful of walnuts before bedtime. They are also great when added to a bowl of yogurt. Which leads us to our next food…

3. Milk

Turns out that warm milk can help you fall asleep at night! Dairy products contain both protein and tryptophan, which help you to sleep better.

Try greek yogurt with walnuts and tart cherries (you’ll get the benefits of all of the top sleep foods!). To help reduce sugar intake, look for unsweetened yogurt. If you can’t resist a little bit of sweetness, you can drizzle honey over the top.

For those who can’t tolerate dairy, almond-based products are a great alternative, as almonds are also very high in tryptophan. So give almond milk, or almond yogurt, a try!

4. Turkey

Turkey is famous for inducing post-Thanksgiving naps, so it’s not surprising that it is on our list. Due to high amounts of tryptophan, turkey is a great option for a pre-bed snack.

As mentioned earlier, make sure to eat something that contains carbs when consuming foods with tryptophan, as this will increase its effectiveness (source).

Try wrapping a turkey cold cut around a piece of cheese for a quick pre-bedtime snack. The tryptophan + carbs will having you snoozing in no time!

5. Raw Honey

Raw honey is a good food to eat before bed due to the fact that it contains a high amounts of carbs. Remember, high carb foods combined with tryptophan = bed time! So when eating honey before bed, make sure to eat foods high in tryptophan.

Try drizzling raw honey over yogurt or cereal, or you can simple stir it into herbal tea!

6. Kiwi Fruit

Kiwi is high in serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in your circadian rhythm, and has been shown to help you fall asleep more quickly (source). It’s also high in antioxidants and potassium and is considered a superfood.

Eat a few slices of kiwi fruit before bed, or mix it into a tropical smoothie with banana and pineapple!

7. Pistachios

Pistachios are very high in an important nutrient known as Vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 helps convert tryptophan into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate your sleep/wake cycle. In fact, a deficiency in Vitamin B6 may even be causing your sleeplessness!

Make sure to eat some pistachios before bed!

8. Tuna

Tuna, and other fish such as salmon and halibut, also contain Vitamin B6. Avoid farmed salmon, as it tends to lower levels of Vitamin B6.

You can eat tuna for dinner, or have it as a snack before bed. An easy snack idea is to eatcanned tuna with crackers, this can help you fall asleep!

9. Whole Grains

Eating carb-filled foods like whole-grain bread, rice, and cereal can make you sleepy by causing a quick blood sugar spike. This can be the perfect thing to help you fall asleep…However, if you have issues with waking up in the middle of the night, you may want to steer clear of this solution. Waking up in the middle of the night is often the result of your blood sugar dropping after it’s initial spike.

10. Banana

Bananas have high levels of potassium and magnesium, which have a relaxing and calming effect on your body. This calming effect will help you to doze off at night.

Try mixing up a smoothie with banana! It gives a sweet flavor to a smoothie, and adds a smooth consistency.

SMOOTHIE HACK: Freeze your bananas before using them for a smoothie. The frozen banana is easier for your blender to chop up, and it mixes better!

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So there you have it. Eat these 10 foods and start sleeping better! If they don't help you sleep better, you can always consider an alternative, such as a natural sleep aid to help you fall asleep.